The outdoor concert season came to a merciful end on Saturday night, when Bunny Wailer did not show up and Dread & Baha trodded on bravely anyway at the magnificent Clearwater Beach venue. The show started sometime between 11 p.m. and 12 a.m. (yes, I was there for the start this time!), and the vibes were quite good for the local part of the show.

It is always good to see Bermudian audiences giving love to Bermudian performers, and that is what I witnessed every time a Bermudian act hit the stage on Saturday night. Onika was introduced as "a girl who plays the Congo drums" by the woefully inadequate MC (where is Mr. Controversy when you need him? Big up Andrew!), but that did not deter her, or anyone else for that matter. Onika did three very nice pieces that sounded extremely full considering she only had percussion instruments backing her. The highlight was the stirring 'Lionheart', which garnered much love from the somewhat sparse crowd.

Oh, did I mention the turnout? Well, let us just say that the desired numbers were not attained. If one counted every head at the event, I would say they would come up with a number around 500 ... that includes vendors and backstage folk mind you. I guess all the confusion over whether this show was going to happen at all made a lot of folks stay away. But alas, the numbers are very rarely any reflection on the actual show (this is, of course, a lie!).

After Onika took her bow (and her drum), the marvellous Jahstice took the stage, and the 'Bermy Connection' portion of the show started in earnest. Ali was the first local to enter Jahstice's realm.

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He was as solid as ever and received much love for his efforts (as always) as did Ras Mykkal, a very noteworthy local who is becoming quite a showman these days.

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Ras dropped the scorching 'Dem Call Mi Controversial', the thought-provoking 'Me A Wonder' and the brilliant 'A So It Go (Diallo)', which featured Truneh Flood of Fires Of Africa. Ras' set was shorter than it was last year, but his delivery seemed a bit more polished ... oh, and it was exceedingly good to see the man in front of a live band! You know how I do Ras! Well done Sun.

The next act was somewhat of a surprise for me, due mainly to the fact that I have felt for quite a while that the Fires Of Africa are criminally underexposed in Bermuda. They went up to Washington DC with Ras, Geneman and I back in June and turned the Folk Life Festival out every time they took the stage. I remember thinking after each performance that it was a crying shame that this group was relatively unknown in its own homeland! Hopefully Saturday night will be the first of many such performances on the horizon for this excellent group of original Reggae soldiers. Fires Of Africa dropped the hauntingly beautiful 'Here Today, Gone Tomorrow' and then took flight to a chorus of sporadic applause ... wait till ya'll hear the rest of their repertoire!

The next act to hit the stage was the venerable Ras Giorgis. Giorgis did a well constructed set that lasted for about 20 minutes or so, dropping the superb hits '911 (State Of Emergency)', 'No More (Pirates)' and the explosive 'Police State' (which featured another fantastic performance from the fabulous Ninja Cutty) along the way. The crowd showered the locals with their love, and the foreign acts invaded soon after.

The band change was considerably longer than necessary, and the remainder of the show had an inescapably perfunctory feel to it. I mean, the actual performers did what they do, but the bands that followed seemed quite stiff and a bit disgruntled. Every performer that got up on stage had to request low playing and various other things only available with a live band over and over again. Perhaps the sound was such that the band could not hear the performer's requests, but it did not look too good at all. There was a similar problem with the spotlight operator ... Elephant Man had to threaten the light guy with bodily harm to get him to take the spotlight off him at one point. The artists showed up, the technical people seemed a bit peeved that they had to work ... or maybe those were just completely isolated incidents (who knows?).

Cecile was good, as was Charlie Chaplin, but at this point it was the youth who were swelling the crowd, and all they wanted to know about was Elephant Man and Lexxus. 'Changes' was a hit, and the crowd really took to a lot of the new stuff Cecile blessed them with, but there were no requests for an encore if you know what I mean (wink-wink). Charlie dropped various hits from his considerable catalogue, with a sweet rendition of the Marley classic 'Rastaman Chant' and the stunning 'Cry Blood' being the standouts of his 20-minute set.

Then there was another overly long band change! Lexxus exploded onto the stage another 15 minutes later, after the MC stumbled and stammered through his introduction, and immediately won our approval. 'Full Hundred', 'Cook', 'Ring Mi Cellie', 'Hush', 'Let Those Monkeys Out', 'Divine Reasoning' and an enormously amusing performance of a new piece called 'Anyway, Whatever' kept our heads nodding and our bodies moving throughout the half-hour set. Lex exhibited an astronomical amount of charisma, and made us laugh as much as he made us dance - a sign of a truly skilled showman. This set was easily the highlight of the evening for many of the attendees, including this critic (what can I say, I like to laugh ... this guy was pure jokes!).

Then there was Elephant Man. 'Replacement Killer', 'Watchie Pum', 'Truth Hurts' and the ubiquitous 'Log On' were delivered just for us and we ate up every morsel. He also dropped an accapella piece inspired by the September 11 tragedy called 'Thru De Bombin', all about the various effects the hideous terrorist act has had on the Caribbean and its people in New York City.

Elephant Man did about forty minutes, implementing various extras into his performance, including an impromptu dance competition, a duet with Cecile that did not work because her mic was completely silent (and he kept falling down ... sorry, y'had to be there) and an attempt to get a child from the audience to sing a song (a very failed attempt). His set ended abruptly when, at 3.30 a.m. sharp (really ... it was quite eerie) there was a mass exodus from the stage area to the parking lot area.

Elephant Man put on his jacket and hat and left the stage, the MC mumbled something, the mad rush of vehicles began and that was that. The end of a long, exhausting show that closed out a long exhausting season ... let's hope the winter months bring a few more succinct shows shall we?